Stablecoin-based dusting attacks now account for an estimated 11% of all Ethereum transactions and 26% of active addresses on a typical day, after the Fusaka upgrade significantly reduced transaction costs, according to Coin Metrics.
Ethereum is processing more than 2 million transactions per day on average, with activity peaking near 2.9 million in mid-January. Daily active addresses have climbed to around 1.4 million — roughly 60% higher than previous norms.
Rolled out in December, the Fusaka upgrade lowered fees and improved usability by enhancing onchain data handling and cutting the cost of posting data from layer-2 networks back to Ethereum.
Digging through the dust on Ethereum
Coin Metrics analyzed more than 227 million USDC and USDt balance updates on Ethereum between November 2025 and January 2026. Of those, 43% involved transfers under $1, while 38% were for less than one cent — amounts it described as having “insignificant economic purpose other than wallet seeding.”
“The number of addresses holding small ‘dust’ balances, greater than zero but less than 1 native unit, has grown sharply, consistent with millions of wallets receiving tiny poisoning deposits.”
Pre-Fusaka, stablecoin dust accounted for roughly 3 to 5% of Ethereum transactions and 15 to 20% of active addresses, it said.
“Post-Fusaka, these figures jumped to 10-15% of transactions and 25-35% of active addresses on a typical day, a 2-3x increase.”
However, the remaining 57% of balance updates involved transfers above $1, indicating that most stablecoin activity remains organic, Coin Metrics said.
Users urged to watch for address poisoning
In January, security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov flagged a 170% surge in new wallet addresses during the week starting Jan. 12, linking the spike to a wave of address poisoning attacks exploiting low gas fees.
These so-called “dusting” attacks typically involve malicious actors sending fractions of a cent in stablecoins from wallet addresses designed to resemble legitimate ones, tricking users into copying the wrong address when making transfers.
Sergeenkov estimated that address poisoning attacks have already resulted in $740,000 in losses. Coin Metrics data shows the most prolific attacker sent nearly 3 million dust transactions at a cost of just $5,175 in stablecoins.
Dust does not reflect genuine economic usage
Coin Metrics reported that roughly 250,000 to 350,000 Ethereum addresses per day are involved in stablecoin dust activity, but emphasized that most of the network’s recent growth has been driven by legitimate usage.
“The majority of post-Fusaka growth reflects genuine usage, though dust activity is a factor worth noting when interpreting headline metrics.”
